CHAPTER VIII.

In a Garden with Graves.

"SO this is the Protestant Cemetery," said Paul, as, holding his nurse's hand, and somewhat awed by the solemnity of her manner, he stepped within the great gateway.

The vague fear which had crept into his mind vanished as he looked about him. Masses of red and white and mauve azaleas were blooming in pots on either side the entrance; roses of almost every variety grew amid the tombstones, and though the violets were over, their abundant leaves made green coverings for the graves. The tall, dark green spires of the cypresses rose beautifully against a sky of perfect blue; bees were buzzing and butterflies flitting among the flowers; it was a place to make one in love with death. Yet it was not of death, but of life that everything testified on that lovely afternoon.

"I like this place," said Paul, breaking away from his nurse in his eagerness to explore it. "Shall I be buried here when I die?"

"I hope not," said Janet, with a sudden sense of pain; "but who can say? Only God knows when or where or how any of us will die."

"Why do you hope not?" asked the child. "I think I should like to be buried here. It's so nice and warm in the sun, and the flowers smell so sweet. And how the birds do sing! Does God send them here to sing to the people in their graves?"

"Why, no, Master Paul; there's no hearing or seeing or smelling in the grave. There are no people there, indeed, only their worn-out bodies. Their souls, their real selves, you know, are with Jesus in heaven."

"Oh!" said Paul, wonderingly. "With Jesus in heaven! How do they get there after they are put in the ground?"

But Janet had passed on, intent upon finding Shelley's grave, and paid no heed to his question. Paul slowly wandered after her, his feet finding little irregular paths amid the graves. He looked up at the shafts of light falling on and between the dark cypresses. How high the trees were! Their tops seemed to touch the sky.

"Heaven is up there," the child said to himself; "God lives on high, above the sky. How do they get there? Do they climb up through the trees?"

Then Paul remembered having seen a picture representing two angels supporting a slightly clad female form upon their wings as they sped upwards towards the sky. He had been told that they were carrying the woman to heaven.

"Perhaps," he said to himself, "they climb as high as they can, and then the angels come and carry them the rest of the way."

And the more he mused upon the explanation he had found, the more satisfactory it seemed. Then, moved by the songs of the birds and the sweetness of the flowers and the sunshine, he suddenly began to sing words which accorded ill with the clear, joyous swell of his childish voice:

"'I'm but a stranger here, Heaven is my home; Earth is a desert drear, Heaven is my home.'"

The child's song reached the ear of a gentleman who was standing at a little distance, accompanied by the large and beautiful dog which was his constant companion. He was a man barely forty years of age; but he looked older, for his face had a worn and melancholy expression and showed signs of ill-health.

He had paused to read the inscription on an old tombstone, one of the oldest in the cemetery, which recorded the death, by sudden accident, of a young girl.

"Reader," said the mute warning, "whoe'er thou art, who may pause to peruse this tale of sorrows, let this awful lesson of the instability of human happiness sink deep in thy mind. If thou art young and lovely, build not thereon, for she who sleeps in death under thy feet was the loveliest flower ever cropt in its bloom."

A sad smile passed over the face of the man as he read the words.

"It is not here alone that one may learn the instability of human happiness," he said to himself. "There are worse calamities than an early death, and worse partings than it effects. Life can separate more utterly than death."

And with the thought, the very sunshine seemed to darken, and earth was to him indeed a desert. At that moment the child's song fell on his ears. He was struck with the inappropriateness of the words which came with such a joyous lilt from the childish lips.

He listened. The sounds came nearer.

Suddenly they ceased. Then—"Oh, what a dear dog!" said the fresh young voice from behind him.

The gentleman turned, smiling with genuine pleasure. The sight he saw was prettier than the sounds which had reached his ear. He had seen that morning Raphael's famous fresco in the church of Santa Maria della Pace, and now, peering over a low gravestone, much in the attitude depicted by the great painter, he seemed to see in the flesh the very angel-boy Raphael has so exquisitely introduced into his sublime group of Sibyls. The soft, golden curls, drooping low on the childish brow, the innocent blue eyes, the purity and sweetness of expression, were indeed such as that painter loved to render, but the picture vanished, as the child bounded to the side of the dog.

"You need not be afraid; he will not hurt you," said the gentleman; but the words were unneeded.

Paul did not know fear where animals were concerned. Already his arms were around the dog's neck, and he was kissing his soft glossy coat.

"What a beautiful great, big dog!" he said. "What is his name?"

"Beppo," answered the dog's master; "and yours—what is your name, my little man?"

"Oh, I'm Paul," said the child. "Beppo! That's a funny name, isn't it?"

"Paul!" repeated the gentleman, and looked at the child with a new and deeper interest. "How old are you, Paul?"

"I'm nearly five," said the boy; "Janet says I shall be five in August, if I'm spared. That's when my birthday is, you know."

The gentleman did not smile at the child's quaint phraseology. He was gazing at Paul with an intentness the boy found embarrassing.

He turned, and rested his cheek against the dog. "Why did you call him Beppo?" he asked.

"I did not give him the name," said the gentleman. "He was named by the monks of St. Bernard, from whom I had him. He belongs to the race of dogs known as St. Bernards."

"Well, now, that is funny!" exclaimed Paul in a clear, ringing voice. "For my name is, Bernard, you know. Mother is Mrs. Bernard."

"Really!" the stranger's voice quivered as he spoke. He dropped on one knee beside the child, and put his arm around him.

"And your father, little Paul," he murmured; "you have a father?"

"Yes," said Paul, "I have a father, though I never see him. But I shall soon; oh yes, I shall see him soon!"

"Why do you say that, Paul? What makes you think that you will see him?"

"Why, because I ask God every day to let me see my father very soon," said Paul, in his matter-of-fact way, "so of course I shall."

"Why do you wish to see him?" asked the gentleman.

"Because he is my father," said the child, "and fathers are good and kind. Besides, I think mother would not be so unhappy if father were to come."

"Is she unhappy?" asked the gentleman, quickly and breathlessly; "are you sure she is?"

"I should think so," said the child; "she sighs because she is unhappy; she told me so. Sometimes there are tears in her eyes when she talks to me, and that shows, you know, that she is sorry, or else naughty. I remember that mother said one day that she was naughty; but I could hardly believe it."

"Of course not," said the stranger, and his voice had a strange sound. "You love your mother very much, I am sure, little Paul."

"Yes, I do," said the boy, "and I should love my father, too, if he would only come."

"Would you—would you really?" said the gentleman. "Will you give me a kiss for your father, my dear boy?"

"Give you a kiss for him?" returned the child. "Do you know my father, then?"

"Yes, I know him. Give me a kiss, little Paul."

The child looked for a moment into the grave, pleading eyes that were only a little less blue than his own; then he threw his arms around the stranger's neck and kissed him warmly.

"Be sure you give him the kiss, and tell him it's from Paul," he cried. Then he turned again to hug the dog, which licked his face and gazed on him with great, friendly eyes, and the next minute he heard his nurse's voice calling him.

"That's Janet," he explained, "I must go."

His new friend made no attempt to detain him; but he watched the graceful little form till it passed out of sight. Then he clutched at a head-stone for support, for he was trembling exceedingly, and all his strength seemed gone from him.